Sánchez narrowly ahead in Peru runoff quick count; both candidates urge caution

Peru's presidential runoff ended without a clear winner after an extremely close vote. A quick count by the pollster Ipsos, carried out with the NGO Transparencia on a representative sample of tally sheets, gave a slight edge to leftist candidate Roberto S nchez, with 50.3% of the vote, against 49.7% for conservative Keiko Fujimori. The gap, within the margin of error, amounts to a technical tie that prolongs the uncertainty in a country that has had nine presidents in a decade.

The result shifted through the night. Exit polls released as voting closed had initially placed Fujimori first, but the quick count —which tends to anticipate the final result more precisely— reversed the trend. At the same time, the still-partial official count by the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) favored Fujimori, though the tally sheets processed came largely from Lima, one of her strongholds; the rural and Andean areas, where S nchez performs best, remained to be counted.

S nchez, of the Juntos por el Per party, celebrated the lead before hundreds of supporters from a balcony in Plaza San Mart n, in Lima's historic center. This is the day of the recovery of democracy, he said, though he later called for prudence and urged people to defend the vote and electoral transparency. A former minister and ally of ex-President Pedro Castillo —jailed over the 2022 self-coup— S nchez has promised to pardon him and received the first results at the Barbadillo prison, alongside him. In the final stretch, he moderated his platform to ease fears among economic sectors in one of the world's largest copper exporters.